Will Smith and Jim Carrey were both defeated by the weather as the US box office suffered an insipid weekend due to appalling conditions, including a large storm in the country's north east.

Carrey came out just on top in the battle of the A-listers, with his comedy Yes Man, in which he plays a man who tries to change his life by responding in the affirmative to every request made of him. Yes Man took $18.2m against $16m for Smith's Seven Pounds, although the figures for both films were substantially lower than studios had hoped, as cinemagoers stayed at home to avoid the poor weather.

The box office takings for Seven Pounds, in which Smith plays an IRS agent with a fateful secret who sets out on a journey of redemption by changing the lives of seven strangers, was the actor's lowest since 2001's Ali. Since then Smith has reliably pulled in decent returns, often defying poor reviews to top weekly box office charts.

In third place, animated adventure The Tale of Despereaux, about a heroic mouse with oversized ears, took a relatively disappointing $10.5m, mainly from family audiences. It features the voices of Matthew Broderick, Emma Watson and Dustin Hoffman. The top five was rounded out by Keanu Reeves's sci-fi remake The Day the Earth Stood Still, with $10.1m in its second week, and the festive comedy Four Christmases, starring Reece Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn, which managed $7.7m in its fourth.

There were no other new films in the top 10 this week, but awards season fare continued to perform well on limited release. Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle's Oscar-tipped tale of a teenager from the Mumbai ghettos who finds himself one question from winning the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, was in eighth spot with $3.1m from just 589 screens, about one sixth the number of cinemas which showed Yes Man.

Studio Sony was unphased by the lack of a No1 opening for Seven Pounds, with executives pointing out that Smith's films tend to have excellent staying power at the box office.

"I'm certain the movie will find its way," said distribution president Rory Bruer. "We had great exits, and people like the movie. I think the long-term prospects are very, very good."